1. Field of the Invention
The invention relates to an information provision apparatus and an information provision method for providing a vehicle passenger with information relating to energy replenishment of an energy supply source of a vehicle.
2. Description of Related Art
A conventional information provision apparatus provides a vehicle passenger with information relating to a charging facility for charging a battery of an electric vehicle (EV). Such information provision apparatuses are proposed in Japanese Patent Application Publication No. 2003-262525 (JP-2003-262525 A), Japanese Patent Application Publication No. 2011-102739 (JP-2011-102739 A), Japanese Patent Application Publication No. 2011-188596 (JP-2011-188596 A), and so on, for example. In this type of information provision apparatus, a charging facility existing on a periphery of a current location of the vehicle is extracted, and the vehicle passenger is provided with information (charging facility information) indicating a position, a use condition, and so on of the charging facility. The charging facility information is provided using an in-vehicle terminal such as a navigation apparatus when a remaining battery capacity falls below a determination reference value. The vehicle passenger can therefore use the provided information to determine a battery charging timing and locate a nearby charging facility.